Here Comes Mr. Track-Record!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

Oct. 11, 2014

E-mail: [email protected]

And so the self-tickling foolhardiness continues. He has been traipsing the country talking about the need for party delegates and the electorate at large to elect leaders with proven track-records. The sad irony, though, is that he has no proven track-record of elective public office of substance to brag about. None whatsoever! And so, I suppose it is quite legitimate to assume that our self-preening Handsome Giant has wisely sobered up and is now vigorously campaigning for the election of the man who twice defeated him for the presidential candidacy nomination of Ghana's main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Recently, one of his Texas-based make-believe Akufo-Addo partisans even had the temerity to accuse yours truly of "displaying Akyem stupidity at its best." And so it well appears that in the books of the Cash faction of the New Patriotic Party, were are given to believe that anybody who calls a spade by its proper functional designation, by putting the Handsome Giant where he inescapably belongs, must be guilty of "Akyem Stupidity," the very same "stupidity" that caused the likes of Messrs. Akenten Appiah-Menka, A. A. Afrifa, N. Y. B. Adade and R. R. Amponsah, among a legion of other political giants, to truck with the William "Paa Willie" Ofori-Atta-led United National Conventional (UNC) in the 1979 general election. 

Well, since Dr. Jones Ofori-Atta ran for the Akyem-Begoro constituency seat on the ticket of the Victor Owusu-led Popular-Front Party, I guess he can be legitimately described as the one weirdly wise man among the stupid Akyem lot? I shall have ample time in the near future to teach that son-of-a-maggot some meaningful lessons in human civility and common sense.

The foregoing, of course, is not the reason for the present piece. Besides, I have already put that rainforest quadruped in his place. He may do well to find out for himself precisely how it came about that an Akyem (Ofori-Atta/Ofori-Panyin) woman called Obaabarima Nana Yaa Asantewaa, by way of Adanse Akorokyere, mounted the august Edweso/Ejisu Stool as both Queenmother and King. And also precisely how the Akyemkwaas of Asiakwa (my profuse apologies to my own great-granduncle and astute communicator and pioneer broadcaster, Nana Owusu-Akyem Tenten of Kyebi-Adadientem) came to own an Asante-Dwaben cardinal stool called Adwuampong - The Great Royal Stool. Young man, I don't suffer twerps and cretins gladly, if you really want to know.

At any rate, precisely what does the Cash Man mean when he claims to have recovered lost electoral ground in - of all places - the Volta Region? (See "Volta Gives Alan Hope" The Chronicle 10/11/14). I mean, this is the very land and people that handed the Show Boy and the so-called Man-of-the-Millennium a piffling 10-percent of the ballot in the 1960 presidential election. Prime Minister Kofi Abrefa Busia would follow suit, as also would President John Agyekum-Kufuor. Not even the likable Paa Willie - about the only Danquah-Busia-Dombo camp-mate - who could make any serious electoral dent or inroad in the Volta Region, could legitimately claim to have "received" the kind of "massive welcome and endorsement" in the "Great Trokosi-Alliance Region" that the clinically punch-drunk Handsome Giant is reportedly bragging about.

And I also hope to the high heavens that the Cash Man understands what he is talking about, when he sneeringly asserts that the 700 New Patriotic Party Super-Delegates that offered the knock-out nod to Nana Akufo-Addo on the last day of August this year, "cannot be the true representation of the 140,000 party delegates who are expected to vote in the October 18" presidential primary.

Indeed, the Handsome Giant may be dead-accurate on this one. But were he also honest and humble enough, in the manner and to the degree claimed by his shills and sympathizers, he would have been equally quick to point out that there were a proportionately remarkable percentage of delegates from the Volta Region among the Super-700 that afforded the former NPP-MP from Akyem-Abuakwa South the commanding nod on August 31. But even more pointedly and significantly, Mr. Alan John Kwadwo "Quitman" Kyerematen would have also soberly acknowledged that it was through the direct and singular instrumentality of Nana Akufo-Addo that upped the number of New Patriotic Party plenary delegates to the 140,000 that the Cash Man so refreshingly now salivates over.

Now, Mr. Cash, let's talk about "track-records" and "proven leadership"!